India unsure if Feb 2000 has 29 or 30 days

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Folks

From "column 8" of the Sydney Morning Herald, 23 Dec 1999

http://www.smh.com.au/news/9912/23/html/column8.html

...The second and final Test in the forthcoming home series against South Africa will be held at Bangalore between March 2 and 6 and not from March 1 to 5, it was clarified by the cricket board here [Mumbai] on Monday. "We have written to the International Cricket Council (ICC) to find out whether February has 29 or 30 days next year. There have been some newspaper reports that the month will have 30 days," board secretary Lele said in Mumbai on Monday...

No source for the original, unfortunately.

RonD

-- Ron Davis (rdavis@ozemail.com.au), December 22, 1999

Answers

I read in the 1998 almanac that the year 2000 is scheduled to be a leap year but that it would be skipped to calibrate the calender to correct for slight differences with astronomical movement. This is done every 400 years on 00 years.

So based on this February should have the usual 28 days in 2000.

All the calendars that I have seen in the stores have 29 days.

Could they all be wrong???....Do the programmers know about this???

If someone could shed some light, please do.

Jack

-- Jack Marshall (marshall2@iname.com), December 22, 1999.


The article refers, of course, to the obscure sport of cricket, enjoyed by about 0.5% of the world's nations.

Gotta be the most boring sport in the world (almost treason for an Aussie to say that), goes for days and seems to nearly always end in a draw!

RonD

-- Ron Davis (rdavis@ozemail.com.au), December 22, 1999.


The rule for leap years: all years evenly divisible by 4 are leap years, except the years ending in '00'. However, if the century (that's '19' this year, '20' next year) is evenly divisble by 4, that year is a leap year.

February 2000 has 29 days. (February 1900 had 28 days.)

People get confused because they half remember that years ending in 00 are a special case, but forget how it goes.

-- kermit (colourmegreen@hotmail.com), December 22, 1999.


Jack

It's a leap year, here's the rule...

A year is a leap year if it's exactly divisible by 4

Unless it's exactly divisible by 100, in which case it is not.

Unless it's exactly divisible by 400 in which case it is.

2000 therefore *is* a leap year. God, I hope all the programmers know this by now, I can assure you the ones on my team do!

RonD

-- Ron Davis (rdavis@ozemail.com.au), December 23, 1999.


This is how leap years work. Every 4 years is one. Except for the start of the century. Except that if the new century's first 2 digits are divisable by four, then it is a leap year. So, 1600 was a leap year. 1700,1800, and 1900 were not. 2000 will be a leap year.

-- gary elliott (gelliott@real.on.ca), December 23, 1999.


Kermit,

Thanks for the clarification, I had it backwards.

-- Jack Marshall (marshall2@iname.com), December 23, 1999.


"We have written to the International Cricket Council (ICC) to find out whether February has 29 or 30 days next year.

Uh... there wouldn't by any chance be any programmers from India responsible for Y2K remediation would there? Let's hope they are just a teensy weentsy bit more familiar with the calendar than the Cricket players or we may have a little problem come February 30th.

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), December 23, 1999.


So did some of our software and OS's during testing. HHHMMMmmmmm.

-- Squid (ItsDark@down.here), December 23, 1999.

So, I guess that's it for "Marshall's Law".... UGH! Sorry, Jack, couldn't resist that one.

-- Sara Nealy (keithn@aloha.net), December 23, 1999.

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